In considering the combat options open to free-trappers, Mountain Men, long hunters and Scouts while traversing hostile Indian country, I leaned on Shayne, who commanded U.S. Army Ranger Units in combat in Central America and two Middle Eastern Theatres. He has also hunted this landscape for over a half century.
From my reading, I understood all parties involved in these non-military operations by civilian specialists to rate as special operations units, in terms of navigational and stalking skills. He suggested that they would be better than that and particularly noted how vigilant Indian war parties were in terms of scouting and sentry protocols.
He outlined three possible types of engagement from most rare to most common.
1. The ambush was the least common scenario as such an attack by either side is so lethal that the enemy dedicated their navigation methods to avoiding it.
2. The meeting engagement, where parties accidentally run into one another, was equally rare for the same reasons, but was far more survivable and likely to resolve itself indecisively.
3. The assault on a camp, utilizing a stealthy approach, would be the most common option for the native forces, with vigilance, superior armament and choice of position being the three pillars of defense.
This basic guide [which did not include Hollywood infiltration tactics against Indian campsites], along with specific terrain studies and coaching on windage and distance estimates—which I found quite difficult, being used to such close terrain in the wooded east—will serve as my basic guide to evaluating historic accounts of engagements bearing on the Medicine Trace Tales.
Thank you, Shayne.
Books by James LaFond
